Charms Class
by rhead-a-holyc
Summary: James' accidental prank during Charms.


**Charms Class: Assignment 2**

**Extra prompts: (word) sparks; speech ("What's so fascinating about toads?"; (emotion) guilt**

**Charms Class**

James had always known that Charms was Lily's favourite class, so while he enjoyed pranking people at every opportunity, he generally preferred for that pranking not to happen during a Charms lesson. He wasn't all that interested in the sparks and other seemingly unimportant, in comparison to Transfiguration, charms that were taught. Lily was the most interesting thing in the classroom.

On that particular day everything seemed to be going wrong. The prank left for the Slytherins had somehow turned a bunch off Hufflepuff first year girls pink instead, who had screamed at the sudden spell. It had been an absolute disaster, and all the while Lily had been watching him disapprovingly as if she already knew that he had set the prank up.

He hadn't realized that the bunch of toads they had found in one of the corridors had been for _Charms_. He had thought that they were some strange rare cousin to the normal toad, and for _Care of Magical Creatures_.

He eyes the toad nervously as it was placed on the table in front of him by the unsuspecting Charms Professor. It hopped around the table a couple of times, looking very much like a normal toad.

For now, at least. He didn't know when exactly the delayed spell would be in effect, and how he wished he did right now. He could have gone to the bathroom around ten minutes prior to whenever the prank would go of. There was no point in that now, he _didn't_ know.

"What's so fascinating about toads, anyway?" he asked, eyes still glued onto to the ticking time bomb jumping around innocently in front of his eyes.

He almost felt bad for the little animal, knowing its fate had already been decided.

"I didn't think you would be that interested in the subject. We will be attempting to change the size of the toads today. I dare say the lesson may even be interesting enough for you to pay attention to, for once."

He swallowed, and began to feel a bit guilty about the entire situation. Not guilty enough never to do it again, just guilty enough to double check every prank to make sure they go the way they were supposed to. No more nasty surprises. That sounded good.

His eyes closed for only a moment, but they snapped open once again when he heard screams. He groaned mentally, wishing he was anywhere but there in that moment. He had never felt this way about a prank since he had accidentally set a snake on a girl, who had unfortunately had a near paralysing fear of snakes.

He really did regret that one, even though Lily didn't believe him. Although he wasn't too surprised that Lily didn't believe him. He _did_ have an awful reputation about not caring about the people he pranked…

The first toad had grown a horn between its eyes that seemed to make its head too heavy to carry. It was lying on the table in an awkward position, the horn easily visible by its size. He almost started sniggering before he caught himself, wishing Sirius was with him in that moment. He could already see Sirius' reaction in his mind's eye when he told him later.

Another scream brought his attention to another toad that now sported extremely long legs that were stick thin and looked on the verge of breaking. The toad tumbled onto the table, legs still thankfully intact. He wasn't sure whether that would be able to be fixed when the spell wore off, because the spell was going to wear off, right?

He yelped when he noticed that his toad was beginning to grown antlers. Of all things that could happen, it had to grow antlers? Why couldn't it be a tail or something?

He ducked as the antlers suddenly grew more than he had expected, and nearly into the place where his face had been only moments prior. The antlers finally stopped growing and he stared in horror at the toad lying helplessly on the desk before him.

He decided never to use pranks that required spells and enchantments on animals again. The animals were much more helpless than fellow students could ever hope to be, and could do nothing but take whatever was thrown at them. It was unfair, and went against everything he saw as Gryffindor.

There were only a couple of other toads that grew extra body parts, not all of them changed, but he barely noticed as he continued to stare at the toad that was kicking helplessly in an effort to stand again.

He couldn't help it because he hadn't made sure to have a spell to change the animals back, expecting to wait until the original faded. They hadn't really thought about it.

He could help though. Maybe.

It was only the antlers which were heavy anyway. So he only needed to get the antlers off, right? Which meant anything that would get it off would work, including a simple cutting charm in his case, as long as it was strong enough. It was almost a perfect way to test them on their Charm work, except it was one the Professor hadn't thought about.

He used the cutting charms until the antlers were about an inch away from the top of the toad's head, scared he may accidently kill the toad if his hand slipped, but it had worked. The toad was able to lift and move its head once again. It began hopping around the desk like it had in the beginning of the lesson, looking almost content with its new additions.

He almost laughed, before realizing that he wasn't just experimenting and was actually in class.

No one was watching though. They were panicking over their now abnormal toads, everyone except the Professor who looked like he had been watching him for some time.

He thought that the Professor may have known who was behind the entire fiasco, despite never actually saying it out loud.


End file.
